speculative fiction

MENLO PARK, Calif. — Sunbury Press has released Joseph Carvalko’s latest novel, Death by Internet, speculative fiction about a prisoner who is at the mercy of public opinion via social media.

About the Book:
THE SPIRITUALITY OF NATURE CONFRONTS TECHNOLOGY TO DISCOVER THE ESSENCE OF MERCY AND CRUELTY

Carvalko takes the reader to the outer edge of technology and ethics in a speculative fiction that evokes the bizarre power of the Internet to reveal if the world is merciful.

Strapped down and dying in a prison cell, Sam Mariani tells how he had invited the public to respond to his blog, but rather than click the familiar “Like” button as on Facebook, they voted to either “Die” or “Live”, depending on whether they agreed with his opinion, which in turn forced the protagonist to inhale, through a valve, minuscule doses of cyanide or its antidote.

In his quest for humanity, the site goes viral attracting millions, but has the unintended consequences of riling the masses, who take to the streets, some elevating him to the prominence of a messiah, causing the government, fearing a revolution, to attack him via cyber warfare.

What Others Are Saying:
If you delight in fiction that engages the reader in an ethical dilemma, you’ll love this contemporary allegory, which journeys from Wounded Knee to a macabre life and death experiment on the Internet.

Excerpt:
LONG BEFORE THEY arrested me for cybercrimes and “manifest acts of violence against the government,” I chose to live off the grid, and then, yes, hell yes, one day, I plugged myself back into technology to answer humankind’s most profound question: had we become its master, or its servant for executing a nondescript manifesto against the common “good.”

Surreptitiously, all things digital quashed any semblance of free will. Waves of diffused “ones and zeros” relegated every man, woman, and child to the status of an inextricable component in a closed circuit. Increasingly powerful technology came out of the cloud firing electric missiles that struck the center of humanity’s imagination, wresting the power to choose, to farm or forage, to make peace, to save Earth from a thermal meltdown.

In less than a generation, new lexicons appeared: metadata, fail whale, Google bomb, shock site, troll, electronic medical prescription, facial recognition, crime-seeking drone. So-called friends posted façades on Facebook buying into an illusion of open connectedness, while satellites furtively circled the planet compiling dossiers on law-abiding masses. Multinationals launched an array of robotized medicine, banking, education, and apps that drove our cars. We measured deeds in bits, bytes, and dollars, becoming a dehumanized embodiment, a necessary cog, in all manner of electronic computation and control.

Yes, I railed against an assault aimed squarely at the heart of civilization, and for this, they called me a sociopath and charged me with cybercrimes, punishable by death.

About the Author:
Joseph Carvalko is adjunct Professor of Law, Science and Technology at Quinnipiac University School of Law as well as a patent attorney and electrical engineer (holding ten patents including medical devices and computer/communications systems technology). He is a member of the Community Bioethics Forum, Yale School of Medicine and a member of the Yale Technology and Ethics working group. He has authored papers related to law and technology, and drafted hundreds of patent applications during his career. Formerly he was a research associate in the biomedical engineering field, designing and programming cellular automata computers for artificial intelligence applications in cytological pattern recognition, and afterward worked extensively developing computers and telecommunications.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Sunbury Press has released The Heatstroke Line, Edward ‘s L Rubin’s first novel, a Cli-Fi thriller set in the near future.

‘Edward Rubin has temporarily exchanged his academic cap for a novelist’s hat and has written a powerful cli-fi novel set in the near future.

”He knows that “Mad Max,” “The Hunger Games,” “Waterworld,” “The Walking Dead,” and innumerable other books, movies and TV series attract large audiences by portraying a future where society has been devastated by war, disease, environmental calamity or supernatural disaster. Such post-apocalyptic tales constitute an important and widely-popular genre.

”As a novelist, Rubin wants to place his own cli-fi footprint in the sands of time and hopes that his book will serve as a kind of warning flare for readers now and in the future.” — Dan Bloom, The Cli-Fi Report

EXCERPT:
Daniel Danten didn’t really want to have a family. What he wanted was to be a scientist, to teach at a university and produce original research. But this seemed so unlikely, given the state of things in Mountain America, that he decided to hedge his bets or he’d have nothing to show for his life. So he married a woman he convinced himself he was in love with and had three children. As it turned out, somewhat to his own surprise, he achieved his original goal, probably because he switched fields from astronomy to entomology, a subject of enormous practical concern these days. And now, with a secure position at one of Mountain America’s leading universities, his own lab, and a substantial list of publications to his credit, he spent most of his time worrying about his family. His wife, Garenika, was depressed, his ten year old son Michael was suffering from one of the many mysterious ailments that were appearing without warning or explanation, and his fourteen year old daughter Senly was hooked on Phantasie and running wild. Worst of all, his sixteen year old, Joshua, who had always been such a reliable, level-headed and generally gratifying son, had become an American Patriot.

On a blazing, early September afternoon, with the outdoor temperature spiking at 130 degrees Fahrenheit, he was sitting with Garenika in the waiting room at Denver Diagnostic Clinic while Michael was being examined by still one more doctor. Garenika thought they would get some sort of answer this time, but Dan was convinced that the doctor would come out of the examining room and say that she really couldn’t tell them what the problem is. Senly was spending a rare evening at home and Joshua was just returning from his field trip to the Enamel, an expedition that, Dan felt sure, was designed to make the participants angry, rather than providing them with information. The doctor appeared and Garenika jumped to her feet.

“Well,” the doctor said, “I really can’t tell you what the problem is.”

“Why not?” Garenika asked, her voice tinged with its increasingly frequent sense of panic. “Why can’t you find an answer for us? Look at him—he’s losing weight, his skin keeps getting blotchier, and he’s exhausted all the time.”

“I’m sorry. As you probably know, we’re pretty sure that we’re seeing all these new diseases because the climate change has wiped out a lot of the beneficial bacteria that we used to have in our bodies. Commensals, they’re called. But we’ve never really figured out how they work, so it’s hard to compensate for their disappearance.”

“Okay,” said Dan. “So what can we do for Michael?”

“Keep him comfortable and give it time. Put cold compresses on any area where there’s a rash. Try to get him to eat, lots of small meals if he can’t tolerate a large one. We’re expecting some new medicines from Canada that may relieve the symptoms. Michael’s getting dressed; he’ll be out a few minutes.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Edward Rubin is Professor of Law and Political Science at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. He is the author of ​ an academic book titled​ “Soul, Self, and Society: The New Morality and the Modern State.”
​. ​
”The Heatstroke Line” is his first novel. For more information, see ​his website at www.edwardrubin.com.

MOOSE JAW, Canada — Sunbury Press has released Tanya Reimer’s novel “Petrified,” a speculative young adult novel about a young lad from Saskatchewan who must save the world 100 years in the future.

About the Book:

Legends say that when all hope is lost, Grey Whisperers will save the world.

It’s 2115 and hope is lost.

Bogies attack on the Saskatchewan prairies turning men to stone.

Grey Whisperers have vanished.

Yet one boy has faith. Gabe might only be thirteen but he’s studied Notebooks written by Grey Whisperers all his life. He believes they will come.

Even after bogies haul off his brother and pick Gabe as their next target, he refuses to give up.

On the run, he befriends two special Whisperers who use his Notebooks to tame the ghostly monsters with nothing but magical whispers. The trio set out to fight the enemy behind the attacks but the truth puts in question everything they believe in, even their friendship.

Excerpt:

Saskatchewan, 2115—

Gabe cupped his hands to get a drink of the cold water. The Moose Jaw river wasn’t clean enough for him to drink from, but he’d found a brook beside the city where the water tasted like it did back home, on the sacred hill. The brook overlooked the Saskatchewan prairies and every time he glanced that way, Gabe was tempted to return to his cellar to study and well… to catch a decent nap. He hadn’t seen his bed in a long time and the way things were going, he might never see it again. Why did that thought twist his guts?

Gabe shook the dirt from his long, grimy red hair and studied himself in the water. His black eye didn’t throb right now, but it looked bad. He couldn’t believe he’d let a girl beat him up and chase him out of Moose Jaw.

He scooped up a second mouthful of water, feeling more alone than ever. A movement reflected in the water. Gabe glanced up. A large bird circled above him. It was brown with grey streaks and twice his size. All his senses were alert with the sudden presence of the bogie. Last time he’d encountered one of these spirit-monsters it had tried to turn him to stone. Would this one, too?

Gabe slowly backed away from the water, trying not to draw attention to himself.

“Light, shield me,” he whispered, and a magical light appeared and twirled in front of him. It warmed his face as it surrounded him like a shield, giving him a new sense of hope. It might not protect him if the bogie dived, but it was worth a shot. He was a Whisperer, after all—why not use magic to protect himself?

About the author:
Speculative Fiction Author, Tanya Lynne Reimer is also director of a non-profit French Community Center on the Canadian prairies. Many of her novels are inspired by her years of research into Saskatchewan’s local Francophone history.

She claims to have a very ordinary life, spiced up with a writing addiction. It’s how she gets a rush. In fact, just last night she found a way to kill an immortal and whispered him to Afterlight.